First, I want to thank Ellie and Alastair for their careful, accurate, and insightful commentaries. Each has gotten my view entirely right. Each has raised interesting objections. Each has focused on parts of my book that I take to be central. Each has presented commentary and objections in a helpful and courteous way. I am grateful to them both.
As I see it, Ellie in effect makes one main point: she thinks I have overintellectualized pleasure. I said that a person has sensory pleasure at a time if he has some sensation in which he takes intrinsic attitudinal pleasure. While I did not give any analysis of intrinsic attitudinal pleasure, I said that it is a propositional attitude like hope, or fear, or belief. It is the attitude you attribute when you say that someone is pleased about something, or takes pleasure in some fact. Ellie is willing to accept the outlines of this account of sensory pleasure, but only if the conception of attitudinal pleasure is modified. She proposes a ‘feelier’ theory of attitudinal pleasure, which she then uses (much as I did) to explain sensory pleasure.
In his comment, Alastair makes a very similar point. I had claimed that the sensory feelings that go under the title ‘sensory pleasures’ have no uniform and definitive phenomenology. I had claimed that what makes them count as pleasures is that the one who experiences them takes intrinsic attitudinal pleasure in the fact that he is experiencing them. Alastair seems willing to agree to all this, but he (like Ellie) is not entirely happy with my account of attitudinal pleasure. Again like Ellie, he suggests that attitudinal pleasure might not be a ‘purely cognitive attitude, such as belief’. Instead, he says, it ‘may well have particular qualia as [an] essential element.’
So it seems to me that Ellie and Alastair are willing to agree with me on a couple of essential points:
1. There is a distinction between sensory pleasure and attitudinal pleasure.
2. Sensory pleasures are not phenomenologically uniform; there is no such thing as the feeling of sensory pleasure itself.
3. The concept of sensory pleasure may be analyzed, or explained, by saying that an experience counts as a sensory pleasure if the one who has it takes intrinsic attitudinal pleasure in the fact that he has it.
4. Attitudinal pleasure is a propositional attitude, and in this it is relevantly like belief, hope, fear, etc.
They disagree with me concerning one main point that I wanted to make about attitudinal pleasure. I said that attitudinal pleasure does not have any distinctive ‘feel’. I said that a person could be pleased about something even if he had been given anesthetics that made it impossible for him to have any pleasant or painful sensations. Taking attitudinal pleasure in something does not essentially involve any particular ‘feel’. I suggested an analogy. Surely a person could believe something even if he were anesthetized; surely he could hope for something even if he were anesthetized. These propositional attitudes do not essentially involve any specific phenomenology. Why should being pleased about be any different? Ellie and Alastair express doubts about this last point. They both say (though in slightly different ways) that attitudinal pleasure essentially involves some sort of feelings, or ‘qualia’.
I should mention here that Ellie and Alastair are not alone. Michael Zimmerman makes essentially the same point in a not yet published paper he wrote for a book symposium on Pleasure and the Good Life. Zimmerman complains that my concept of attitudinal pleasure is too ‘thin’. Roger Crisp makes a very similar point in a review.Footnote 1 He says that my concept of attitudinal pleasure is ‘desiccated’.
Both Ellie and Alastair use the term ‘cognitive’ to describe attitudinal pleasure as I conceive it. I assume that when Ellie and Alastair describe my kind of attitudinal pleasure as ‘cognitive’, they mean that it is a propositional attitude that does not essentially involve any particular sensory phenomenology – it doesn't have to present itself with sensory qualia. In spite of some misgivings about the terminology, I will use the term here as they do.
Alastair does not specify the nature of the alleged feelings that you would have to experience if you were taking pleasure in something. He just alludes to them as ‘some kind of emotional feel’ (p. 390). Ellie is a bit bolder. She sketches some cases, and tries to describe the feelings that would be components of attitudinal pleasure in those cases. She admits that what she has given is only a hint, and that the feelings are ‘hard to describe’. But Ellie has sketched some possible ideas. In fact, I think she has hinted at three different ideas. In one place, Ellie says this about attitudinal pleasure: ‘Taking pleasure in? Typically identified by a feeling of lightness and ease, a warm feeling in the stomach, sometimes a giggly feeling and shortness of breath, and recurrent thoughts of the object. Of course it isn't that simple . . .’ (p. 383). A few paragraphs later, Ellie describes a case in which she is taking pleasure in the fact that she will soon get some frosty beer and salty peanuts. Note that she does not have the beer and peanuts yet; she is not enjoying the tastes. In this example, she is just taking attitudinal pleasure in the fact that she will soon be tasting them. Ellie says that when this happens: ‘I feel lighter, a warm glow, a slight tingling of my scalp – I get “the pleasure feel” ’(p. 384). Near the end of her commentary, Ellie describes an imaginary case in which she learns that a former boyfriend is about to become a father. She says that she ‘feel[s] a sudden rush of warmth, and over the next few days, this returns to me, and I realize that I am pleased for him’ (p. 387).
These remarks could be taken in several different ways. On one reading, we could take them to suggest a view according to which when you take pleasure in some state of affairs, two things happen. First, there is some bare ‘cognitive’ pro-attitude. You are in favor of the state of affairs. By itself, this has no ‘feel’. But in addition there is a feeling of warmth experienced either in the stomach or in the scalp or elsewhere in the body. In other words:
D1: S takes pleasure in P at t = df. S has a pro-attitude toward P at t, and S has a feeling of warmth in her scalp or stomach when she thinks about P at t.
It should be clear that D1 will never do as a general account of attitudinal pleasure. Suppose I have been working outdoors on a hot summer day. Suppose I am tired and thirsty. Suppose I knock off work and come in for a cold beer. Suppose that as I drink it, I am refreshed. I really enjoy the beer. Surely it would be very strange if the pleasure I take in the fact that I have this beer essentially involved a feeling of warmth. That would be precisely the wrong feeling. I want to feel cooler. If I began to feel warmth in my stomach, I would be disappointed. If I began to feel warmth in my scalp, I would fear that my friends were pulling some sort of trick on me. Maybe someone has poured some hot coffee on my head – precisely what I do not want to feel at a time like this.
On another occasion, suppose I have been troubled by an annoying tingling sensation in my scalp. Maybe I have a very bad case of dandruff. Suppose my barber prescribes an itch-and-tingling suppression lotion, which she rubs into my hair and scalp. Suppose it works. Surely in this case I would be pleased about the itch lotion, but I would definitely not feel any tingling in my scalp. In this case, the central thing that I am pleased about is that I do not feel any tingling there.
Of course, Ellie really did not endorse the idea that to take pleasure in something is to (a) have a pro-attitude toward it, and (b) feel warmth in the scalp or stomach. D1 does not express any idea she really means to defend. Perhaps her view is just that when you take pleasure in something, two things must happen. First, you must have a pro-attitude toward it, and second, you must have some suitable feeling or other when you think about it. The suitable feeling might be warmth; but it might be coolness. It might be tingling in the scalp, or it might be feelings of giddiness in the abdomen. Let us say that all such feelings are ‘pro-feelings’. This yields another interpretation of Ellie's view:
D2: S takes pleasure in P at t = df. S has a pro-attitude toward P at t, and S has some ‘pro-feeling’ when she thinks about P at t.
One problem with the approach illustrated by D2 concerns the alleged ‘pro-feelings’. If warmth in the stomach and tingling in the scalp are pro-feelings, then D2 yields strange results. Suppose I have heartburn or dandruff. As a result I always have either feelings of warmth in the stomach or feelings of tingling in the scalp. Then the right-hand side of D2 will be satisfied every time I have a pro-attitude toward anything. Suppose, for example, I have a mild pro-attitude toward a glass of lukewarm orange juice – it's better than nothing at all. Then I would have a pro-attitude and a warm feeling in the stomach (brought about by heartburn). D2 then implies that I am taking pleasure in having the orange juice. The same would be true in every case. It would be impossible for me (given my heartburn and dandruff) to have a pro-attitude toward anything without also taking pleasure in it.
I see a third way of interpreting Ellie's remarks. She could say (though I think she does not say this in the comments) that when you take pleasure in something, two things must happen. First of all, you must have a pro-attitude toward that thing. Second, you must have a distinct, sui generis feeling of pleasure when you contemplate it. This feeling of pleasure is not to be identified with feelings of warmth in the stomach or tingling in the scalp (as on the first interpretation). Nor is it sufficient just to have some pro-feeling or other (as on the second interpretation). Rather, if you are taking pleasure in something, then you must be feeling the distinctive ‘pleasure feeling’ when you have your pro-attitude toward that thing.
D3: S takes pleasure in P at t = df. S has a pro-attitude toward P at t, and S has the distinctive feeling of pleasure itself when she thinks about P at t.
I definitely do not like this view, either. I think there are several things wrong with it. The most serious problem is that there just is not any such feeling of pleasure. Ellie agrees that there is a problem here, but I think she is not sensitive to the depth of the problem. It's not just that the alleged feeling is elusive, or hard to describe. The problem is that it does not exist.
But even if there were such a feeling, problems would still remain. Suppose someone offers Ellie some orange juice. Suppose at the same time someone else offers her a delicious cold beer and some salty peanuts. Suppose Ellie just has a mild pro-attitude toward the orange juice, but definitely takes pleasure in the offer of the cold beer and salty peanuts. Then three things would be happening in Ellie's mind. First, she would have a pro-attitude toward the orange juice. Second, she would have a pro-attitude toward the beer. Third, she would feel the sui generis feeling of pleasure. It seems to me that in a case such as this, D3 implies that Ellie is taking pleasure in both the orange juice and the beer. After all, she has the requisite pro-attitude and she has the requisite feel. As the case has been described, that is the wrong result. She is supposed to be taking pleasure in the beer, but having only a thin pro-attitude toward the orange juice.
This problem could be overcome by the addition of a causal link between the object of the pleasure and the feelings of pleasure:
D4: S takes pleasure in P at t = df. S has a pro-attitude toward P at t, and S has the distinctive feeling of pleasure itself as a result of thinking about P at t.
The addition of the causal link would solve that problem, but it would create another. For now, Ellie would not be able to tell immediately whether she was genuinely pleased about the beer and merely favorably disposed toward the orange juice, or whether, on the other hand, she was genuinely pleased about the orange juice and merely favorably disposed toward the beer (or both; or neither). She would have to do some empirical research to figure out which thoughts were triggering the sui generis feeling of pleasure.
I cannot speak for Ellie. I can speak for myself. In a case such as that I would not have to run through Mill's canons in order to determine what I was really pleased about. I would know immediately, and without the sort of inference that would be required if the suggested theory were true.
So far I have been trying to make just one main point. Ellie and Alastair and several others were uneasy with my account of attitudinal pleasure. On my view, attitudinal pleasure is an undefined propositional attitude; it does not necessarily involve any particular feelings. They claimed that it would be a good idea to have a ‘feelier’ account of attitudinal pleasure. Ellie's remarks suggested a couple of such accounts. As Ellie anticipated, I am not entirely happy with her proposed modification under any of the interpretations I have discussed. Now I want to turn to a second main point. I am also a believer in the well-known philosophy: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I have already discussed (and found fault with) several proposed fixes. Now I want to focus on the question whether there is any need for a fix. Is anything broke? Have Ellie and Alastair located a problem in my account of attitudinal pleasure? What are their objections to my account of attitudinal pleasure?
At the beginning of her comments, Ellie says that she is keen on the pleasures of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. She says that she will urge (apparently in opposition to me) a return to these hedonistic goods. An incautious reader might think that Ellie is suggesting that my view goes wrong because it does not give these things their proper value; as if my brand of hedonism said that the pleasures of sex, drugs, and rock and roll are to be declared worthless. But Ellie did not say any such thing. She wouldn't say it because she knows that my view gives the pleasures deriving from these things full value.
On a view like IAH the sensations associated with sex (for example) are not ultimate sources of value. When a normal person has such sensations, he or she takes pleasure in the fact that he or she has them. (That, in my view, is what makes them count as pleasures.) The ultimate source of value on my view would be these takings of attitudinal pleasure in the sensations rather than the sensations themselves. But IAH certainly does not devalue a life filled with the pleasures about which Ellie is so keen. It could rate them just as high as Ellie seems to want to rate them. She is not claiming that my view goes wrong because it fails to give these things their proper value. So what are her objections to my view?
In one place, Ellie says: ‘Feldman implies that “taking pleasure in” is a sui generis state, but it is just like a pro-attitude – it need not have any feel. So Feldman's analysis misses out that crucial element: the enjoyment of the object of the attitude’ (p. 382). A bit later on the same page, she seems to be making fundamentally the same point when she says, ‘The problem is that an attitude without a feel does not capture a crucial element of pleasure – the pleasurable bit – the bit that feels good’ (p. 382).
The objection here seems to be this: on my view, attitudinal pleasure is a purely ‘cognitive’ propositional attitude. This attitude does not analytically involve any particular sensations, or ‘feelings’. Therefore, on my view, a person might take attitudinal pleasure in something without actually enjoying it; and this is impossible.
I am not sure that this is Ellie's objection, but her words suggest it. In any case, I think the objection must be based on some sort of misunderstanding. It seems perfectly obvious to me that I have not left out the enjoyment – or as Ellie says ‘the pleasurable bit’. I think it is impossible to take attitudinal pleasure in some experience you are having without enjoying it. That's because I have identified attitudinal pleasure by saying that it is the attitude we take toward a state of affairs when we take pleasure in it, enjoy it, delight in it, etc. Ellie herself quoted these remarks on the first page of her comments. So clearly I have not left out the pleasurable bit. It is impossible to take attitudinal pleasure in something without taking pleasure in it. So if you have some sensation, and you take intrinsic attitudinal pleasure in the fact that you are having that sensation, then (on my account) you simply must be enjoying it. To enjoy the sensation (in these circumstances) just is to take pleasure in it.
In another passage Ellie raises another objection to my account. She says: ‘It is part of the phenomenology of pleasure that it can be unexpected. We can take pleasure in things despite ourselves. The feel account of attitudinal pleasure is better at making sense of this than the bare attitude version’ (p. 387).
Ellie seems to be saying that if attitudinal pleasure were a bare ‘cognitive’ propositional attitude, then it would be hard to explain how an episode of pleasure could be unexpected, or how it could occur ‘despite ourselves’. On the other hand, she seems to be saying, these common facts would not be so difficult to understand if attitudinal pleasure were ‘feelier’ and involved more than just a bare propositional attitude.
Unexpected pleasure is surely a real phenomenon. I come around the bend and see a beautiful vista. I am delighted. I enjoy the view. I never expected to see anything so pretty. Similarly for pleasure ‘despite ourselves’. I expect to dislike our new neighbors. I am all set to find the dinner party boring. Yet, despite myself, I find them delightful. I enjoy their company. Any theory that fails to account for these familiar occurrences would therefore be problematic.
What puzzles me is Ellie's suggestion that my bare cognitive account of attitudinal pleasure is in trouble here. From the fact that something is a bare cognitive propositional attitude, nothing follows about its being incapable of arising unexpectedly or despite ourselves. These same things are true of ever so many bare cognitive attitudes. Take belief, for example. Surely you have found yourself believing something that you never thought you would believe – for example, when you get the phone call, you might start believing that you had won the lottery. You might never have expected to have that belief. Similarly, sometimes you find yourself believing something despite yourself. For example, I believe that my new neighbors are intelligent and amusing people in spite of the fact that I was convinced that they would be stupid and boring. Belief is a bare cognitive propositional attitude; but sometimes it just creeps up on you. Why can't attitudinal pleasure be like that?
Alastair tentatively suggests another line of argument that might be thought to show that attitudinal pleasure has some qualitative ‘feel’. He claims that there is a distinction between purely cognitive attitudes such as belief on the one hand, and more emotional attitudes such as fear and enjoyment on the other hand. Purely cognitive attitudes can persist through long periods of time even though they do not rise to consciousness at many times during the period; emotional attitudes, on the other hand, must be conscious. At least, this seems to be Alastair's point in this passage:
There is, though, an important difference between believing that I won the lottery on the one hand, and fearing that I didn't win it, or enjoying the fact that I did win, on the other . . . My enjoyment or fear must be conscious, whereas my belief need not be. The attitude of belief can hold of us for long stretches without interruption. . . . We don't lose our beliefs when we focus on other things, or even when we sleep, but we do lose our enjoyment and our fears, at least sometimes. (p. 390)
Having established this difference between purely cognitive attitudes (such as belief) and emotional attitudes (such as enjoyment), Alastair goes on to suggest that the latter, unlike the former, might also ‘share some kind of emotional feel’. They ‘may well have particular qualia as essential elements’ (p. 390).
I am not entirely sure I have gotten Alastair's point exactly right, but if I have understood it, then I am inclined to disagree. I think he is saying that there is this difference between purely cognitive attitudes and emotional attitudes:
If C is a purely cognitive attitude (like belief) then it is possible for S to C p during a long period of time t even though S does not consciously C p at many times during t.
If E is an emotional attitude (like fear or enjoyment) then necessarily, if S E's p during a long period of time t, then S consciously E's p at every time during t.
I think the claim about emotional attitudes is false. Consider fear. My wife has ophidiophobia. She has been afraid of snakes for as long as I have known her – which is about fifty years. She has not changed in this respect. In fact, ophidiophobia is defined as the excessive and persistent fear of snakes. If my wife had lost her fear of snakes during some stretches of time during the past five decades, she would not satisfy the definition. But I can guarantee you that there have been many occasions during these years during which she was not thinking about snakes, or conscious of snakes, or giving any thought to snakes. (She sometimes sleeps; and sometimes dreams of things other than snakes.) She has steadily had an emotional attitude of fear toward snakes during this time, but she did not have this attitude consciously.
I believe that what I have said about fear holds true of enjoyment as well. You might be the sort of person who enjoys being a philosopher. It might be correct to say of you that you have enjoyed being a philosopher ever since graduate school. Perhaps, at your funeral, someone will say that you enjoyed your job all your adult life, and this remark might be true. Yet there might be times when you are too wrapped up in some other project to give any thought to the fact that you are a philosopher. Surely you can enjoy being a philosopher without obsessing about it.
In general, I think that there is no distinction here between belief, on the one hand, and hope, fear and enjoyment, on the other. ‘Cognitive’ or emotional or feely, all of these attitudes can persist through periods during which they are not at the forefront of consciousness.
There are many other very interesting and provocative comments in the essays. I realize that I have not discussed everything Ellie and Alastair have said. In some cases, I have chosen to say nothing since the best I could say would be pretty feeble – something along the lines of ‘I will have to think about that’. Other comments would just carry me too far afield. So I will close by saying that I am grateful to Ellie and Alastair for their careful and insightful remarks. I will reflect on them and get back to the authors when and if I have something useful to say.
